


Young and Beautiful

by guardianoffun



Category: Endeavour (TV), Inspector Morse (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 14:39:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19007839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardianoffun/pseuds/guardianoffun
Summary: On a surprise anniversary trip to Oxford, Peter Jakes sees a face he wasn't sure he would see again.





	Young and Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> SO!!! im an actual sucker for future fics when it comes to Morse? I entirely blame Fitzrove for this, the ending of Soft Like Summer Rain had me all emotional and AHH i just had to try my hand at writing what a future meeting might look like. in my head this is set in a world where morse and jakes both liked each other, there was some pining but jakes left before anything truly came of it. they're both kinda wistful for what could have been, both in love maybe without knowing quite how much? 
> 
> I'm not like, solid on when this is set? Because I struggled to find like a Morse timeline so I think I've fudged dates here and there? But I think it's 1991, Morse is 53 and I'm guessing Jakes isn't much older. I realised like halfway through writing that this means technically I'm writing Inspector Morse fan fiction rather than Endeavour and then I got sad because that means this is Thaw's Morse not Evan's and yeh... don't mind me getting sad lol
> 
> anyways, i hope you enjoy! 
> 
> title from Young and Beautiful by Lana Del Rey, very good song, would recommend !

Somehow, he’s changed completely and not at all. Peter Jakes could pick out that frame a mile off. The hunch of his shoulders, the way he picks his way through the knot of people like he can’t bear to touch them. The wave of his hand as he flags down the nearest face at the bar, the nod of his head as he orders a pint of what Peter assumes is the cheapest whiskey they’ve got; since there’s nobody else around to foot the tab today. 

Scooping up his own empty, he rests a quick hand on Hope’s shoulder and excuses himself. He slips through the late afternoon crowd and throws his wallet on the bar beside Morse.

“Make that two,” he says, waiting for him to turn. He does, snapping up in surprise, and he looks as though he’s about to argue when he realises who he is.

“Peter?”

“In the flesh,” he says, and he can’t stop himself, he slaps a hand on Morse’s shoulder. It isn’t shrugged off.

Up close, he can see maybe Morse has changed. There are lines around his eyes, the unmissable grey of his hair; how like Morse to stress himself into an early aging. He’s not quite as thin and lanky as he used to be, but then again neither is Peter. Somewhere along the way Mose must have learnt how to cook for himself more than once a week.

Morse face splits into a smile, and he glances back at the bartender.

“If he’s buying, we’ll have that one,” he says with a wave towards something older and probably pricier. Peter laughs, doesn’t mind really, he’s on holiday so why not.

“You cheap bastard,” he jibes as they take their drinks. Morse snorts, and turns to walk towards a booth. He doesn’t ask if Peter will join him, he knows he will. He slips into a seat, and Peter into the one across from him and for a moment they don’t speak. They’re both too busy, drinking in the sight of one another. Peter can hear Morse’s brain ticking away, noticing all the small changes. The warm tan that stands out against a backdrop of rainy Oxford, the worn hands that have seen decades of hard labour, the way grey hairs have snuck in around his temples after the stress of three children.

They both move for their drinks in unison, and something about the mirrored movements shatters the silence. The both laugh, smile and drink and then Morse makes a quip about his hair and Peter insults his ability (or lack thereof) to iron his own clothes and it’s like it was before, back when they finally learnt to understand one another. Just like that, they’re old friends again.

“How long’s it been, Christ, nearly thirty years,” Peter muses as he swirls his drink.

“Twenty-four,” Morse says, perhaps a little too quickly. Peter nods, can’t find the words to respond so he takes another swig. He knew that, really, of course he did. His eldest daughter is twenty four, she was born the same year he left for Wyoming.

That reminds him. He flicks open his wallet, and finds the least faded of the pictures he has tucked in it.

“Don’t know if you ever heard,” he says, thrusting it under Morse’s nose. “I’m a grandfather now.”

Morse looks at the picture, and his face softens for a moment. The little girl staring up at the camera is barely a year old, but her dark hair and little nose have something very Peter jakes about them.

“She’s beautiful,” Morse says. Peter’s heart swells, of course he knows his little Wendy-girl is the most brilliant granddaughter, but hearing Morse say it, the smartest man he knows? That just proves it. He fans out the rest of the photos he has tucked away, glad he decided he must keep all of them. It feels very important he introduce Morse to his family.

He shows off his eldest, Christine, the picture of her at graduation - ‘ _ Classics, Morse, you two would get along’  _ \- of Lori, just turned twenty one -  _ ‘plays her records louder than you, she does’  _ \- and the youngest, Edward.

“I did suggest Endeavour,” Peter blurts before he can stop himself. Morse chokes on his whiskey.

“I bloody well hope not,” he gasps, wiping at his chin with a rough hand. “Poor boy doesn’t deserve that, Peter.” Peter watches him flounder for a second, and tries not to be a little saddened. He hadn’t had many people to name his daughters after, and there had only been one contender for his boy - well maybe two. It had been Hope to pick Edward over Freddie in the end. Peter liked to think that the  _ E  _ was borrowed from Morse, if nothing else.

Morse recovers from the shock and gives him a withering look.

“It’s a nice name,  _ Dev _ ,” he says, the old nickname slipping past without him realising it. Morse huffs, and ignores him, but his cheeks have turned ever so slightly pink.

In an effort to get away from this line of conversation, Morse reaches for his own wallet. There’s fewer pictures, in fact there’s only two. He flashes the first at Peter, pointing out his niece and nephews. The second stays tucked away, and Peter doesn’t pry.

He lets Morse put his wallet back in his pocket, and they move on. Peter leaves for America again the next morning, and he’s not sure when he’ll be back next. There’s better things to talk about than the past Morse want to keep hidden.

They talk a lot of what they do now instead, of Morse’s most recent case, Peter’s last harvest, his family, Morse’s records. Morse has made Inspector, has his own bagman of sorts. There’s a light in his eyes as he speaks about this Lewis, voice gruff. He’s doing a piss poor job of trying to convince Peter he doesn’t care too much, but the act makes him laugh to himself; it’s just so very Morse.

But there’s a lot they don’t talk about. Their losses, the mistakes and the bad memories.

No talk of George Fancy, who Peter knew only through Morse’s odd letters the first few years after the move. One day the letters had stopped and they went on another twenty something years in silence. Morse hasn’t mentioned the man since. Despite his curiosity Peter doesn’t ask, he’s enough of a detective, and knows Morse too well to do so. He could always find Strange and ask. No talk of the wedding Morse missed, despite invitations and plane tickets delivered through his door.

No talk of Peter’s long nights when for some inexplicable reason his body clock reverts to Oxford time and he wakes up in a frenzy because there’s a case to solve, and the crushing sense of loss that lingers then till sunrise. No talks of the times he’s walked into the nearest town, feet finding their way to the police station of their own accord, the hours he must have spent over the years looking through dusty windows and wondering if coming here was a mistake.

But there’s a lot to talk about. Enough to hide, but still enough to keep them talking through that drink and then another and then a third, and by the time they start on the next, Peter catches Hope’s eye across the room and marvels at her. She smiles behind her glass conspiratorially, whispering something to the old roommate they had been sitting with.

She knew exactly which pub she had been suggesting, knew to invite an old friend to keep her company. She knew exactly what she was doing, letting her husband while away the last hours of their anniversary with Morse. It was a better gift than any tie pin or new watch could ever be.

* * *

“You miss it here,” Hope says as they leave the pub, her coat pulled tight around her as the sky above them crackles with the threat of thunder. “Bad weather and all; don’t you?”

Peter’s eyes sweep the street. He feels a pang of something bittersweet in his chest as he picks out the path that would have lead to Cowley back then. He can see himself in the reflection of shop front windows, a few years younger and a shirt size smaller. He can see Thursday’s shadow cast in the lamplight, DeBryn’s footsteps in the sharp slice of the moonlight cast across a doorstep. Strange in the echoing laughter of some blokes off home from work, Bright in the way a man walks by and gives the two of them a small smile as he passes. Ghosts of old times, that feel lost somehow, despite the fact he knows most of his old friends are still wandering around Oxford somewhere.

He takes in a breath, lets himself hold those memories close for a moment. He sees Morse, real as anything, through the window of the pub, downing his last drink and eyeing up a pretty bartender, like nothing at all has changed. In the warm glow of the bar, he could almost look softer. Less grey and grumbling inspector, more redheaded rebellious constable.

Like he’s in his twenties again, like it’s the old days again.

“Of course I miss it. I miss it all.”

**Author's Note:**

> i really enjoyed writing this one, im proud of it! would love to hear what yall thought! 
> 
> also im so glad i set this when i did bc Marilyn died i think it was the year after that and i would have hated to make this more sad than it already is lol


End file.
